Carpel Tunnel Relief

Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) is often caused by overuse and repetitive motion with the fingers or hands and is a common condition these days with long hours working a computers compounded by our strong desires to recreate. Racket sports, cycling, even push-ups can exasperate these painful symptoms.

Carpal tunnel syndrome affects the fingers, wrist, hand and forearm. Symptoms include tingling, numbness and pain. A range of surgical and nonsurgical treatments are available.

Manual and Movement Therapy (M&M Therapy) for carpal tunnel can used to try and avoid surgery. And most often, it is used for recovery after carpal tunnel surgery.

The goal of manual & movement therapy

M&M Therapy for carpel tunnel is aimed at helping people complete daily activities. For most of us, our hands are essential to our jobs and our everyday activities. Therapy is also extremely useful for getting back to everyday life after surgery. This is different from physical therapy, which focuses on improving mobility. If you’ve had carpal tunnel surgery, there’s a good chance you’ll go through both PT and Movement Therapy.

Pre-surgery therapy for carpal tunnel

Care can be used to treat early-stage CTS, as well. Studies have found strong evidence that therapy care could relieve pain in early stages of CTS. These treatments include:

• Gentle exercises, which can strengthen the fingers, wrist, hand and forearm

• Medical Massage, which can alleviate pain and swelling

In some cases, these methods can avoid the need for surgery if CTS is caught in time. However, therapy for carpal tunnel is more widely used after surgery.

Therapy after carpal tunnel surgery

Care given post-surgery resembles pre-surgery options, but there are key differences.

For example, soon after surgery a therapist will provide gentler style of massage assisting the lymphatic system. This is important to help reduce swelling and to help move fluids out of the affected area.

Other therapy methods that may be used after carpal tunnel surgery include:

• Mild exercises: This helps strengthen the hand, fingers, wrist and forearm. They also combat swelling without damaging the incision area/stitches.

• Flexing and stretching: Finger and hand stretches help improve flexibility and combat inflammation. They are generally mild initially to avoid irritating the incision.

• Strength training: As the incision heals, hand exercises will become more robust. They’ll strengthen the muscles in the hand, fingers, wrist and forearm.

• Joint mobilization: This may be done by squeezing and stretching therapeutic putty.

• Improving range of motion: Stretches, flexing and exercises also improve your range of motion after surgery. This enables you to slowly return to daily activity.

• Education: A therapist will teach you will help prevent symptoms from returning. These will aid you in developing healthy posture and mobility habits.

Ultimately, Movement Therapy - a component of medical massage - is vital for patients suffering from carpal tunnel syndrome. It can help to minimize and even eliminate symptoms with an early CTS diagnosis and enables you to return to regular activities after carpal tunnel surgery. It helps you to live life to the fullest, without pain.

Are you suffering from carpal tunnel syndrome?

Contact PEAK Movement Therapy today to reduce or illuminate your carpel tunnel pain and help prevent your pain from recurring. For your convenience, you can get post-surgery Movement Therapy care in the comfort of your home.